FINANCE Minister Edwina Hart is to raid #100m from the National Assembly's reserve budget to fund spending increases on schools and hospitals.

FINANCE Minister Edwina Hart is to raid #100m from the National Assembly's reserve budget to fund spending increases on schools and hospitals.

But her plans to allocate more money in the 2002-3 budget have been condemned as 'spin and a cover up'.

Mrs Hart has earmarked an extra #42.8m for health, #19m for education, and millions more for other areas in the #10.4bn settlement which will be put before the assembly on Thursday.

The extra spending is being bolstered by around #100m of money usually held in reserve, leaving just #25m for emergencies in the next financial year.

Other funding increases include:

l #20m to help councils tackle urgent repairs to roads in Wales.

l #20m to re-introduce student maintenance grants from September 2002.

l An extra #2.2m to help the Wales Tourist Board deal with marketing and development in the wake of the foot and mouth crisis.

l Extra resources for the Welsh Development Agency, the all-Wales skills agency ELWa, the General Teaching Council, and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales.

Finance Minister Edwina Hart said next year's budget aims to 'make the most effective and efficient use of our money'.

And she added: 'We have been able to use resources and our under-spend for the Government's priority areas.

'It will mean real improvements to people's lives.'

Dismissing claims that next year's allocation includes extra funding, shadow Finance Minister Dafydd Wigley said new sums for 2002-3 are a result of the administration's failure to spend previous budgets properly.

'The assembly government is boosting its spending plans by using up the under-spends from previous years and by reducing its embarrassingly increasing reserve fund,' he added.

'Any government that does this is guilty of incompetence and bad financial management.'

Conservative health spokesman David Melding said extra resources for the NHS would not address the shortage in medical staff.

'We are still to receive a commitment on the number of extra doctors and nurses despite the fact they have had this for more than a year in England and Scotland,' he added.

'The cash will do nothing to increase the number of frontline staff in the NHS.'

But Welsh Liberal Democrat finance spokesman Peter Black, whose party is in coalition with Labour, said: 'This budget shows the partnership government is delivering for Wales by targeting key public services.

'We are making a real difference and showing that we are able to deliver improvements to peoples' lives.'